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Move over, CDNowhttp://www.cdnow.com">CDNow;, N2Khttp://www.n2k.com">N2K;, and Music">http://www.musicblvd.com">Music Boulevard---Amazon.comhttp://www.Amazon.com">Amazon.com; and Best">http://www.bestbuy.com">Best Buy want to play.

Members of San Francisco's legendary Grateful Dead have announced plans to reunite for a six-week, 25-city tour beginning in June. The group---whose core consists of original Dead members Phil Lesh (bass), Bob Weir (guitar), and Mickey Hart (drums)---will call itself The Other Ones, after an old Dead tune. The group will headline the third annual "Furthur" tour.

On February 23, Pacific Microsonics announced that Atlantic">http://www.atlantic-records.com/">Atlantic Records' forthcoming golden-anniversary release will feature classic popular recordings remastered using Pacific's high-resolution HDCDhttp://www.hdcd.com">HDCD; technology. The patented High Definition Compatible Disc process enhances the detail, richness, and dynamics of compact disc performance.

The Crystal Semiconductor Products Division of Cirrus Logic Inc. announced last week the availability of the industry's first digital audio transmitters and receivers designed to support the emerging 96kHz digital audio sampling rate. The new mixed-signal receivers and transmitters are targeted at both the professional audio and consumer DVD audio markets.

While the DVD Consortium's Working Group 4 (WG-4) is still working on the 0.9 specification for DVD-Audio, Sony and Philips have been silently carrying on work on their Super Audio CD, the consumer implementation of Sony's DSD. The Sony/Philips disc will have two layers, one carrying normal 44.1kHz, 16-bit CD information (and thus guaranteeing backwards compatibility with existing CD players), the other carrying eight channels in DSD format (two for high-quality stereo, six for surround), plus text and/or graphics.

The market for recorded music, measured by what manufacturers ship to retail and non-retail channels, experienced a decline in unit shipments and dollar value according to a Recording">http://www.riaa.com">Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) report released February 19. Concurrently, accounts from US record retailers and mass merchandisers indicated a banner 1997.

On February 18, Harman">http://www.harman.com">Harman International Industries Inc. announced that it had signed two licensing agreements with New">http://www.nxt.co.uk">New Transducers Limited (NXT) relating to NXT's flat-panel loudspeaker technology.